Written in the Dust
by Oreithyia
Summary: How a young refugee became a powerful kunoichi, wife and mother, and unknown to her, still succeeded in what mattered most. Sand-centric. Attempted cannon compliant.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything associated with it whatsoever. Alas, and woe.

Written in the Dust

Chapter 1

The familiar, rhythmic clicking of the dry, wooden wheel against the gritty stone paving was as comforting to the sandy haired, wide-eyed girl as the feel of her okaa-san's heartbeat when she was enveloped in a loving hug. The continuous, steady rumble and clatter from the wheels of their horse drawn cart had been one of the few constants of the family's emigration to this new country. Even now, her mind retreated to memories of the tall, soft pale green grasses and tiny, multicolored blossoms that lay in speckled blankets across the fields. The breezes picked up stray flowers petals, the scent of crumpled vegetation and freshly disturbed earth from the passage of horses hooves, and tossed them through the air with buffeted butterflies and bickering birds.

Here, the winds threw dust and grit, scooped up scattered, dried animal dung, and the hot smell of relentlessly sun-baked sands, and hurled it into her nose, eyes, and mouth; blasted the tiny glass shards of the dessert into her hair and clothes and down her throat past the scarves they all now wore.

Her grip flexed absently against the coarse boards that made the sides of the cart that held all her small family owned and had been her home as the family fled down the rough roads of the countryside into the unforgiving wastelands. The pony and cart kept her anchored as she looked nervously at the towering buildings walling the narrow streets of the city.

She decided they were ugly. The color was ugly, the shape was ugly, and the way strings of clotheslines covered in peoples laundry hung like gaudy adornments in the shadows cast by looming apartments was tacky. She wrinkled a freckle-flecked nose.

"Okaa-san, is this where they said we had to live?" The girl put the oversized sleeve of her robe over her mouth. It smelled like pee here, too!

"Yes, this is it," the woman, weary, traveled-stained, and aged beyond her years breathed tiredly.

The little girl swung her eyes up towards the top of the building, squinting against the harshly blue desert sky through the shaded building faces. When her okaa-san spoke like that, it meant she wouldn't say much else. Her okaa-san seemed so tired all the time since they had fled from the plains.

"Here, help me unload."

The little girl shuffled around to her okaa-san's side, the rags wrapped around her sandals throwing minute clouds of dust. She scrabbled over the side of the cart with some effort, too short to reach it easily like her okaa-san, and grabbed a few baskets shoved near the side of the cart. Awkwardly, and with assistance from her okaa-san's roughly calloused but patient hands, she griped the wobbly baskets and headed towards the darkened doorway of the apartment building. Concentrating, she remembered the sour faced shinobi's instruction when their mother had been at the front of the line to get through the gates and out of the camps.

_No refugees are to leave the designated ghetto without permission… You will keep your papers with you at all times… Your family is assigned to building 3C on the ninth floor. It's the apartment building closest to the canyon walls…_

BONK!

With a surprised yelp, the girl tumbled to the stone pavement and rolled gracelessly like her now scattered baskets. Sputtering and shaking her gritty mop of hair, she lurched to her feet and pointed an indignant brown glare and jutted jaw at the sudden obstacle that had waltzed into her way.

"Watch where you're going!" she ordered, fists clenched and stomping a sandaled foot against the stones with a rough, sandy scrape while glaring at the brown-haired boy.

The boy, not much taller than her and slouching in the middle of the packed street, made a dismissive noise, and rolled his eyes.

"I go where I want."

A sleeve-clad fist shot out to strike his shoulder with surprising commitment, causing the spiky haired boy to jump in shock and look, really look, at his feisty antagonist.

"I said WATCH where you're going! And you should apologize! I dropped my baskets because of you!" She pointed with emphasis at the newly formed mess of cloth scraps and clothing repairs tools in disarray surrounding around her.

"Help me pick them up," she ordered. The boy continued to stare blankly. She fought the urge to hit him again as she was jostled by other immigrants. What, was he stupid?

People relocating into the tenement continued to move around them, stepping around the baskets and their scattered constants and two bickering children, the soft clop of their feet and rustle of their clothes the only sound between the puzzled boy and increasingly seething girl; simply two people in the sea of humanity.

"Come ON!" The demand was punctuated by another emphatic stomp, "Apologize and help me pick them up! We're in the way!"

She waited impatiently, expecting the stunned boy to begin collecting the scattered household odds and ends littering the alley narrow street. "Didn't your okaa-san ever teach you any manners? Be a gentleman and help me pick them up!"

That did it. The boy shook his head once as if to clear confusion, and then narrowed black eyes to glare back.

"Of course she did! I'm the Kazekage's son!" He pulled himself up proudly, as if she cared about stuff like that. "I know all about manners." He declared, nose up.

"Then quit staring stupid and help me!" With that, the girl whirled around in a swirl of tattered, grass stained dress and rope belt and began rapidly snatching up loose bits of cloth now lightly trampled by passersby unable to see or avoid the spill.

She was gently jostled and heard the occasional "sorry, there" as she collected the bits alone. She was almost ready to tell the boy off again when she saw tan hands begin to collect the scraps cluttered around their ankles.

"You're not supposed to be rude to the Kazekage's son, you know." He carefully made a pile away from stepping feet.

"You'll get in trouble." Muttered.

"Hmph." Not caring.

Finally, all of the numerous scraps were in two sets of small hands that began cramming the already hopelessly wrinkled fabric into the lightly battered, dusty storage baskets.

"So," he started lamely, moving aside to let a shuffling man carrying his own load of baskets through to the busy doorway, "you're one of the new refugees from Kusa no Kuni, huh?"

She looked at him unimpressed, using a look she had practiced after seeing her okaa-san use it on men who said stupid things. What else would she be doing in a place like this: narrow, smelly, ugly, and dark?

"Yeah."

"So, what does your otou-san do?" Honestly curious.

"My otou-san is dead." After a pause, "Most everyone else is, too."

"Oh." The boy fidgeted a little while looking at the over-stuffed baskets, trying to have the grace to look embarrassed. The girl felt a moment of sympathy.

Everybody who had huddled in the wind and dust battered camps that had been organized by necessity outside of the city walls knew that any family wanting into the city had to prove they had a skill of some kind to be worth something to community. She had seen her okaa-san prepare her finest display of sewing on a length of fabric she had, teary-eyed, cut from her treasured wedding robe. She painstakingly sewed and embroidered in the back of the tent, to keep the fabric from being bleached by the ceaseless rays of the sun, she had said. Her okaa-san has nearly danced with over-flowing joy and relief upon returning to their tiny tent with approval papers.

The girl shrugged apologetically. It was only expected that he'd ask what her otou-san's skill was that got her family past the ruthless scrutiny of the shinobi guards. He didn't know they had to leave him when they ran.

"But my okaa-san is a real good seamstress and weaver," she said, trying to get the boy to perk up. He was trying to be nice after being so stupid after all. She began looking for beads and needles in the cracks between the filthy paving stones.

"Oh." Again. He shuffled his feet and maneuvered out of the way of a young woman helping an older woman limp towards the door. "So, it's just you and your okaa-san?"

"And my brother, he's off looking for the well and stuff," she replied, shifting out of the way of a woman carrying a large bundle of pots. Their okaa-san had seemed anxious about sending him out alone, but another woman with boys of her own had agreed to take him with her family.

The boy looked like he was about to say 'oh' again, then caught himself and simply nodded. The girl tilted her head to look at him sideways. He said he was the Kazekage's son. He had the olive skin of the dessert people and was dressed like a shinobi-in-training from this country, with sandals and a dark pants instead of loose robes.

She shrugged lightly and focused on finding all her family's lost items while simultaneously dodging an endless number of dusty feet.

They worked side by wide in silence, sometimes moving to avoid stumbling feet. When she was satisfied with her hunt, not seeing anymore stray glints in the grit, the boy helped her cram the tops on her retrieved baskets and loaded them into her arms.

"Well, I need to keep unpacking." She told him. Her okaa-san must still be making her way back down the stairs in the building. It was really crowded in there. "See you."

With that, the girl turned from her hindrance turned helper and into line of the bustling queue for her new building and grimaced a little. Would it always smell like this in the ghetto?

"What's your name?" his voiced called out. A demand more than a question, but he just seemed like he was a jerk. That was okay. People always said she was a brat. Besides, it was probably polite to tell him since they had just worked together, even though it was his fault in the first place.

She turned her head over her shoulder while maintaining her grip on the teetering baskets. He had his back straight and nose up; looking all-important surrounded by people in filthy robes and skirts and smell of old urine. He really did think he was important. Weird guy.

"Karura."

He nodded once then turned to step forward with the flow of the crowd of newly relocated refugees. She felt her temper flare.

"Hey, your name!" she reminded him sharply. She had given him her name. Hadn't they just gone over being polite? He was supposed to give his in return.

The boy jerked awkwardly mid-step at her shouted words, embarrassed at being caught twice in a show of bad manners and ordered about by some bossy girl. He spun around and was nearly knocked over by the movement of people.

"Like you don't know!" He shot back at her haughtily. She rolled her eyes.

"No, I don't." Matter-of-fact. If he weren't the one who'd just helped her with the baskets she wouldn't care who he was at all. "And I wouldn't have asked if I didn't!" Now it was her turn to have her nose up, but the effect was ruined by a light push from the bag-burdened man in the queue behind her who smiled like an unwashed camel.

The boy made a sour face then demanded, "You don't know the name of the Kazekage's own son? I'm Sunamaru!" He put his hand on his hips, "And I'm going to be the Kazekage someday!"

"He named you after the city?" she giggled, totally ignoring his posturing. "Okay," she snorted.

She turned from the disbelieving boy and his dropped jaw to disappear inside the lopsided, shadowy doorway of the building, following the flow of the line, shoulders shaking slightly from giggles now that she had seen his irritated expression. He was really fun to tease.

He recovered fast, too.

"It's a good name! The heir should be named after the city!" He declared vehemently to her retreating back. "And what sort of a name is _Karura_?"

He challenged in vain as she faded into the shadows and disappeared in a crush of bodies. He paused a moment before petulantly taking one final shot:

"And that is Sunamaru-sama to you!"

* * *

AN: Karura is the mother of Gaara and his siblings in cannon. Sunamaru is my invented name for his father, who is not given a name in cannon.

This is indeed my first attempt at fanfiction and although I originally envisioned a one shot, my inexperience and opportunity to receive feedback has lead me to break it up into chapters. I am very much aware that I am terrible at self-editing, so feel free to note any missed errors on my part to be corrected.

Translations:

Okaa-san- 'mother' spoken respectfully

Otou-san- 'otou-san' spoken respectfully

Kazekage- Wind shadow, the strongest ninja in Suna

Kusa no Kuni – Grass Country


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything associated with it whatsoever. Alas, and woe.

Written in the Dust

Chapter 2

The whiz of the finely honed steel sliced through the air half a moment before it was replaced by the heavy thud of metal cutting into hard wood grain to sink deep into the log, announcing the hit. Two more quick shrieks of splitting air and two more kunai sunk into the training posts as Sunamaru threw the final hand weapons turned missiles.

"Wow, cool!" Karura declared from her where she was standing beside him. She knew he was in training but this was the first time he had shown her the skill he sometimes bragged about.

She and Sunamaru-_sama_ (she always said it with heavy sarcasm) were hidden away in one of the many canyons and gorges breaking up the desert landscape outside the city walls. They made sure to stay well away from the trails taken by merchants or routes patrolled by the squads of Suna shinobi. It would be really bad if they were seen or overhead out here beyond the city walls, especially for her, and especially if they were found with the posts. Although they were technically trash, the old training posts were still wood, a valuable commodity in Suna, and son of the Kazekage or not, Sunamaru could expect punishment if he was caught 'appropriating' them, as he said, and she would be in big trouble with her okaa-san.

Here in this sandstone canyon with the big overhang of sun-baked rock, coated in enough fine sand grains to somewhat muffle echoes, they could play with the posts and his other gear and findings before carefully hiding them again in a deep crevice obscured behind a large crag. It was easy to pretend she didn't have to go back to the crowded tenement or endure those cold looks from Suna natives who automatically despised her for her paleness and all it meant. It was worth maybe getting in trouble for this.

It hadn't taken long at all for the Suna nin who functioned as Sunamaru's bodyguard to report to his father that the heir had taken to hanging out at the fringes of the ghetto to talk with one of the numerous war refugees. After he was told to strictly stay away from the tenements, she and he had soon discovered together it was in exercise in futility to try to hang out elsewhere. No one could mistake her pale coloring for anything but a displaced person of Kusa no Kuni and many people eagerly turned the both of them in when they were together. Sometimes meaner people would scream and threaten her if she snuck out of the ghetto alone; a parasitic alien in their minds.

Her okaa-san still had to work another year and a half to finish the two year long parole before applying for permanent citizenship, permitting the family to freely leave the boundaries of the shabby collection of buildings without facing the disapproving frown of a member police force. That didn't cover what might happen if their trial status was revoked.

The escapes with Sunamaru were when Karura got to learn more about the shinobi art of stealth and sneakiness. Fortunately for her, Sunamaru just wasn't used to being told no, and had begun to come up with schemes to see her.

Karura thought the whole thing was a blast. The looks she got from the Suna locals made her angry, and the tenements were depressing and ugly. Sneaking out with Sunamaru was a way out of the ghetto and a small way to get even. When she wasn't doing chores around the tiny apartment, helping her brother with his homework from his apprenticeship to the local apothecary, or practicing her weaving, she would sneak out with Sunamaru. Getting around the rounded architecture of the Sunakagure buildings was tough, whether in the brilliant sun or oh-so-quiet desert nights, and his bodyguards hated being out-witted by their charge. She'd seen them practically vibrate with fury and plead with Sunamaru to quit his antics. They must really be embarrassed to face his otou-sama after realizing he had successfully evaded them half the day.

She padded in her new desert boots through the cool, shadowy sand over to where Sunamaru was tugging the stubborn kunai out of the posts with a certain swagger despite the necessity of repeated yanks on the reluctant weapon. He was really cocky, so it was fun to pick on him.

She decided to zero in on his ongoing struggle with the implement.

"What's the matter Sunamaru-_sama_? Can't get'em out? I thought you said you'd show me how strong you were," she said innocently, syrupy sweet.

Her tease made the hackles on the boy's neck stand up delightfully. His back was to her and he was still riled up. This was so fun.

With an extra yank he pulled the kunai free of the sun bleached, pockmarked wood. He turned around with that sour expression and she just smiled back peacefully.

"I'd like to see you do that," he challenged, offering her the handle end of his training kunai with one hand and gesturing towards the target with the other.

With a cool shrug, she flipped her now evenly cut hair over her shoulder and snapped up the offered kunai with a flourish. They crunched lightly over the shaded sand together before returning to the edge of the shadow just before it gave way to the blazing heat and glare of sun. Karura mentally measured the distance between their position and the post at the other end of the overhang.

Karura had watched his throwing form with interest. She had spent enough time with him when he was applying his ninja skills and even glimpsed his bodyguard squad in action enough times before being practically squashed during capture to want to see more of how they did what they did. She planted her feet slightly apart, mimicking his throwing form, and pushed back her sleeves. She aimed for the post her skin-warmed kunai had come from, steadily setting up the throw, and using the strength gathered from the hard life of a refugee, flung the kunai at the gouge Sunamaru had created.

Given, it traveled through the air with a much quieter whistle, and the dull thud was very much dull, but in the end the kunai was still embedded in the cracked wood.

Karura turned from her successful strike and faced Sunamaru with hands on her hips, a taunting and expectant smile on her face.

Sunamaru looked at the kunai with a surprised and vaguely accusingly look, as if it has somehow turned on him. He harrumphed before stalking back towards the post to retrieve the traitorous weapon.

"Not bad for a girl," he grumbled peevishly, his voice echoing minutely off the rock overhead.

"Not bad, period!" She corrected loudly. "And I'm not even a shinobi!"

"Well, that's your fault, isn't it?" he challenged. He gripping the exposed handle end of the weapon and tugged it loose with more tries than he would have liked. She really was pretty good for having no training. He frowned a little.

Her mouth dropped a moment at the indirect insult. So he wanted to argue, huh? Game on!

"Oh, how so?" She sashayed in place, taunting him through posturing and a flippant attitude. "My family isn't even a shinobi family. Why would _I_ go?"

"You don't have to come from a clan to go." She knew that, but his voice was _so_ irritated. She quashed a giggle.

He turned from the posts and flipped the liberated kunai in his hand. "You just get tested for potential and they take you." He looked her in the eye, walking back over the sand with an annoyed trudge. "Duh."

She pouted back at him.

"You just didn't have the potential," he finished.

She blinked in miscomprehension. Now she was confused. What was he talking about? She tilted her head at him, squinting a little from the glare of the sand beyond him.

"What do you mean?" She blinked thinking back to all the questions she was asked by the shinobi processing her and her brother before they were approved. "I was never tested for something like that. Just disease and lice before the guards let us in the gates."

Sunamaru now had his turn to look confused. "They didn't?"

She shook her head. "Mm-mm. Were they supposed to? I mean, I've never heard anyone say they should have." She was genuinely surprised. No one had ever mentioned refugees being ninja, but Kusa nin weren't very revered. They didn't even have a Kage in the hidden village in Kusa no Kuni.

"Maybe." He eyes pointed up towards his forehead as he thought about what she said. "Maybe they didn't because you aren't from Suna and a refugee and all that?" His dark eyes brightened with an idea.

"Hey," he said smiling, "some of the stuff I appropriated could be used to see if you have the potential anyway."

"Really?" she asked excitedly as he grabbed her hand and tugged her willingly toward the hidden crack in the rough canyon wall. He had held her hand so much while they were racing around Suna dodging his flock of bodyguards she was used to it.

"Yeah," he said, releasing her hand and dropping to his knees to grope into the semi dark hole in the rocky earth.

An excited thrill shot through her. If she could be trained as a shinobi, or at least go to the academy, then she could see Sunamaru a lot more. She could even get better at dodging his bodyguards with him! And the locals who always sneered at her family's pale features when they went for water or food couldn't say a word! Ninja were allowed almost anywhere and civilians always had to defer to them.

Going to the academy would be great! Maybe Yashamaru could come to. Most of the students she saw pass the ghetto boundaries to go to the academy went with their whole family. That meant her brother could come too even though they were only on parole right now, right?

She dropped to her knees in the rough sand beside Sunamaru and peered over his shoulder into the cache. He withdrew an old box that had the words 'chakra strips' written on it in kanji. Her family had taught her to read before her education was cut off by the first wave of soldiers and bombings of the civil war. She missed it sometimes. She liked reading, but books were really expensive and people from the Kusa ghetto weren't allowed in the public library.

"What do those do?" she asked as he spun the box around to reach and open its latch and lid and pull out a strip. She knew what chakra was from his earlier explanations about jutsu theory, but she hadn't heard of these things. He held up a strip of what looked like white paper and she was grateful for the shade; in sunlight the glare off of it would have been blinding.

"They tell you what kind of chakra you have," he said closing the box, and putting it on a small patch of fallen pebbles. "But they only check for the main five since light and dark kinda only run in families. Sit."

She shrugged off that it was a command and decided to get even later. They both plopped cross-legged in the cool sand facing each other and he held the strip out toward her for her to see.

"You remember how I explained to you how to manifest chakra?" he asked.

She nodded. She hadn't been able to try it at the time because four Suna shinobi had dropped on them right then, but she had tried it later after finishing the dishes at her family's home.

She raised her hand up lightly, closed her eyes, and focused.

"What are- whoa!" Sunamaru gasped.

Slender tendrils of chakra curled around her dusty fingertips, faintly glowing as strands twirled around the scratched up digits like ethereal snakes.

"That's… here just touch the strip," he muttered in jealously, extending the strip towards her hand sullenly. She somehow managed to keep her sneaky grin of her face. She'd never tell him she'd practiced.

As soon as the paper made contact with the strings of energy it split down the middle, tearing itself cleanly in two without pause. Karura opened her bright eyes and grinned, then saw the delighted smile on Sunamaru's face.

"You know what this means? Wind chakra!" he laughed and pumped his arms in triumph. "Wind chakra! You have to become a kunoichi now! All children with wind chakra have to go to the academy. Your family can't say no!" He grinned in happiness and looked to her to smile back.

Karura felt her smile fading in confusion. "What do you mean 'have to'? I can't say no if I don't want to go?" She had to? Why 'had to'?

Sunamaru looked puzzled at her lack of elation, then somewhat angered. "You don't want to spend more time with me?"

She shook her head in contradiction.

"No, I just don't understand why I have to," she ignored the glare that challenged her to say she wouldn't do what he clearly wanted.

Her family had always told her she could do whatever she wanted when she grew up as long as she was good at it. She thought about weaving like her okaa-san, or learning to fish like her ojii-chan and uncles, or being a horse tamer, or making instruments from reeds or bamboo or wood from the clusters of trees that dotted the plains. She was always told to do what she wanted. Why would she have to do anything because someone said so like that?

Of course, fishing was out now. Hard to go fishing without a river.

"Why wouldn't you?" Sunamaru leaned forward, snapping her attention out of her musings and into his smoldering expression. "Everyone who could make a good ninja has to go to the academy. Everyone! No one ever says no. You can't say no." He was looking at her really intensely and Karura felt a little weird at the scrutiny.

"But," she said, struggling to make herself understood, "what if, what if I wanted to be a weaver like my Okaa-san?" Why was he so mad anyway? "The city would say I couldn't?"

"No!" He jumped up to his hands and knees, sending sand flying so he could lean right into her face. "Shinobi become shinobi! You aren't allowed to say no!"

"But I'm not a shinobi! I don't even know any except for you!" she blurted out in startled response. His intensity was really getting to her. She shifted her weight to throw her hands behind her to get face away from his. He was practically breathing on her.

He caught himself suddenly, then sat back down. He made a face and fluffed his hair with one stiff motion.

"Look, I'll be with you. We'll be in the same year even!" he insisted earnestly as she leaned forward again hesitantly. "You do want to be a shinobi, right?" in an almost worried tone, as if he was afraid she'd say no.

Well, duh she did. She just didn't understand why it wasn't just an option. Maybe she could say it that way.

"What I don't get is," she started as he looked at her with that challenge again, "is why I can't _not_ if I didn't want to."

Sunamaru threw his hands up towards the rocky ceiling above them in frustration.

"Karura-kun! This isn't hard!" he glared at her but kept his seat. "If you can become a shinobi you do! It's the same for everyone in Sunagakure!" He looked way briefly before muttering. "No one gets away."

Karura felt a spark of inspiration then.

This was a hidden village of shinobi after all. Sunagakure no Sato. Maybe because this was a ninja village you had to become a ninja because that was just what ninjas did. Maybe the rules were different in a hidden village. That made sense.

"Oh, I get it now."

Sunamaru rolled his eyes so hard he threw his head with the effort. "Well, that took long enough." He settled down and looked pensive.

"Okay, so now we have to show everyone you have wind chakra." He thought harder. "Maybe we can find some way to have you touch the chakra paper by accident when some of the Kazekage-sama's nin are around."

She turned thoughtful in turn. How exactly would they make that happen? With out it being really obvious?

"How do we do that without making you look nuts? You're not supposed to see me." It would be awfully tricky to think of a reason for him to see her and have chakra strip out. They didn't seem like something a student would have.

He shrugged. "I do anyway and they know it."

"So why not be honest?" Now he looked at her like she was the one who was nuts. "Why not? It'll save time and it's not like you'll get in more trouble than usual, right?"

The dark-eyed boy looked back towards their stash of appropriated gear.

"We gotta get rid of all that."

"Yup."

* * *

AN: Interest in this idea! I'm genuinely and pleasantly shocked! Now all I have to do is figure out how to respond to reviews.

Since I despise abandoned stories I have already finished this work but for polishing it and incorporating constructive criticisms. As I mentioned before, I am a terrible proof reader so if I missed something, let me know.

Translations:

Okaa-san- 'mother' spoken respectfully

Otou-san- 'otou-san' spoken respectfully

Kazekage- Wind shadow, the strongest ninja in Suna

Kusa no Kuni – Grass Country

Sunagakure no Sato – Village Hidden in the Sand, full name of Suna

-sama suffix – Most respectful honorific. Can be translated as 'Lord'.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything associated with it whatsoever. Alas, and woe.

Written in the Dust

Chapter 3

Worn sandals shifted to gain better traction against the granules of sand, creating a better foundation for the person they supported above while over-used tendons strained in protest. Despite the dangers of such exertion in the desert, the person panted heavily in the unforgiving dry air, lips already chapped from gasping for oxygen. Sweat, precious water, flowed freely from the persons pores, dripping from perspiration flattened hair, dribbling into squinting eyes, running down the persons back and soaking for a moment into clothing before evaporating into the sky. Salt crystals clung to the person's neck and hairline and itched, while muscles twitched in exhaustion and blood began to seep to the surface of desperately rubbed raw hands.

Yashamaru was going to tell Okaa-san for sure.

Karura looked at the target area once more through vision blurred by sweat and rising heat, and despite the way her torn back muscles screamed in protest at going through this maneuver long past their limit of abuse, burning wildly as if the sweat was leaking into open lacerations, she swung her torso and threw her arms while making the correct motions with open fan using her half-numb hands and wrists.

"_Kamaitachi no Jutsu!_"

Her chakra, already so depleted, flowed like the currents of air it controlled through the chakra network of her forearms, her hands, through chakra links in the fan, and into the very air itself. The motionless air of the stifling midday instantly swirled to life, transforming from a hibernation like stillness to the berserking fury of a killer. Blades of hyper-concentrated air dove faster than any raptor towards the rock wall of the cliff face before her. Jagged cuts, cracks, and gashes cleaved into the rock mercilessly as the stone shattered helplessly into pebbles and dust beneath the blazing sun.

The debris tumbled through the air in arcs, a temporary storm of rock against the clear blue sky, before plummeting to the earth in a miniature meteor shower.

Karura panted, trembling finely before returning to the ready position to signal she was finished.

"Better."

The simple word told Karura it was now allowable to partially collapse, which she promptly did. Leaning as much of her weight as possible onto the support her fan, she pivoted weakly to look at her tessenjutsu teacher.

"Thank you, Yasakani-sensei," genuinely happy and panting harshly.

Karura used one trembling hand to wipe the itchy hair from her forehead before staggering back towards the tall figure of her observant sensei. The much older woman looked down at her student from her impressive height (once Karura worked up the nerve to ask her just how much, the woman told her she was over two meters), though she did not have to look quite so far down as she once did. The woman's expressive black eyes, black like all natives of the great desert's hidden city, reflected the same approval as her words.

The jounin, who was clad in the standard uniform of a sand shinobi, extended one weather beaten hand to gently take her students fan before eyeing critically the stress damage it bore. Karura noted the single lock of her sensei's salt and pepper hair that had come loose during their one on one session. Karura smiled inwardly at that small accomplishment. Although the blast of the jutsu was always aimed forward, she was instructed to manipulate all the air surrounding her in a full 360˚ circle. If she ruffled her sensei's hair while the instructor gave direction from behind her, she had been successful.

The tessenjutsu mistress sighed minutely before returning the fan to Karura, who knew what she would say. The paper of the fan was beginning to look tattered at the ends and the spokes had enough stress cracks running through the wood grain to snap at any time.

"This fan will not endure another training session." Karura nodded.

The basic training fans provided by the academy simply could not handle the amount of chakra she was throwing into her jutsu. She had already surpassed the levels of skill they were designed for and they were fraying apart like banana leaves from the strain.

Inwardly, she frowned. After Sunamaru had revealed to the shinobi in his father's house that she had wind chakra, she and Yashamaru both had been shocked to find chuunin show up at their two-room apartments squeaky door. The reprimand she had been expecting was supplanted by the chakra test for both herself and Yashamaru, who also had wind chakra, to the surprise of the chuunin.

After a whirlwind of tests, paperwork, and she didn't even remember what else it all happened so fast, their whole family was given full citizenship and moved to a new apartment while she and Yashamaru were placed on the academy roster.

Their okaa-san, after threatening to ground her until her 30's for continuing to sneak out after her okaa-san had endured a hair raising visit from shinobi concerning her daughters discouraged time with the son of the Kazekage himself, began to cry right in front of her two children at the thought of them becoming ninja after being presented with the verdict from an indifferent chuunin messenger.

Her okaa-sans tired eyes had wetted with tears that wouldn't fall. Her frame, bowed with the load she bore so many years, from being bent over yards of cloth to mend and hem, had collapsed to a threadbare cushion in the tiny apartment.

Karura hadn't understood what was so painful even as she began to cry herself at seeing her okaa-san sob in agony.

"Okaa-san, what's wrong? Okaa-san!" she had clung to her okaa-san's arm in distress. "Don't cry! Okaa-san I'm sorry you got in trouble! We were just having fun!" she insisted.

Her okaa-sans shoulders shook with dry sobs. The woman who had endured fear and pain could not bring herself to show the pain her weary face wore to her daughter. Yashamaru sniffled in place were he stood in the cramped room, not sure what to do as he wiped his nose on his sleeve.

"Karura-chan," she whispered, "you know what shinobi do. We came all this way," she hesitated, taking a shaky breath. The widow looked at the eyes of her only daughter, her face a perfect blend of love and agony.

"I just wanted the two of you to be safe."

It was only then that Karura felt, looking at her loving okaa-sans heartbroken expression and hearing Yashamaru, who'd been settling into his role of future apothecary quite nicely, cry harder that she finally wondered if she'd been selfish. Her okaa-san had only by luck gotten Yashamaru the position at the apothecary, as jobs were somewhat hard to come by for refugees. And her okaa-san…

Her okaa-san had lost their otou-san, her parents, brothers, in-laws all to war, disease, and poverty. The war had sent so many entire towns fleeing and Karura had not forgotten how her okaa-san had grown old right before her eyes. Her friendly smile and the brightness in her eyes slowly withered away to be replaced by lines of worry as her hair grayed. The war had been mostly between the armies of daimyo and his rogue half-brother, composed of professional soldiers and mercenaries, but enough secret killings had gone on to suggest shinobi were active even in their distant hamlet.

They had run from their home, leaving the gurgling rivers and the soft grass, the dancing butterflies and snuffling horses, the security and contentment. They had left their family -to live or die unburied who knew? - behind only to hear later of the massacres. They had gone over the Tenchi bridge even though it could have collapsed at any moment from the damage of partial demolish, and braved the wholly unfamiliar desert for a hoped for sanctuary with killers that might not have even existed.

Now she and her brother had to go be shinobi because this was a shinobi village, and they would eventually leave their okaa-san all alone.

Karura had decided if she was going into battle now, she was going to be good, the best, because she didn't want to die like Otou-san and make their okaa-san cry like that again.

So far, so good.

Except for the practice fans.

Although she was allowed to break the battle fans and replace them via the academy supplies available, she was allowed only so many in a given period, and she ran though them quickly. The only way to get a better, more durable fan was to buy it, and prodigy in the signature weapon of Sunagakure no Sato kunoichi and personal student of Tessen no Yasakani or not, she had to pay for it.

A good battle fan was tremendously expensive. Carefully made via a process as equally complicated and revered though very different than that of making a katana, battle fans were highly complicated works of art with no small amount of personalization included to guarantee they achieved their highest level of performance. Even the 'cheap' ones at the academy were too expensive to just hand out indiscriminately as they did the kunai, hence the restriction on allocations.

There was no escaping that affording one was nearly impossible for someone like her. Her okaa-san's hands were becoming arthritic, Yashamaru had been tapped to become a medic nin due to his perfect chakra control and was still in training with a laughably low stipend, and her D and few C rank missions simply didn't bring in the money.

Yasakani-sensei was kind enough to instruct her free of charge, but to expect her to buy a fan for her student was insane. Karura looked up at the veiled face of her teacher (some of the older women of Suna kept up with this old tradition, but the young woman stopped at scarves like what Karura wore now, carefully pinned to prevent it from getting in the way of her jutsu), as she was handed a bamboo water holder. She took careful sips to not spill the precious the liquid.

"You're improving so swiftly," the teacher noted. "You may be the most talented student I have taught this art."

Karura almost choked on the water. Tessen no Yasakani was known to be brief and taciturn to the point of rudeness within Suna, as she never bothered with the empty politesse and blatant obsequious behavior some nobles expected even from a jounin who was the village's uncontested master of the Iron Fan.

Karura smiled brightly through the layer of salt and grit covering her face.

"Arigatou-sensei," she answered.

"I merely state fact," her sensei replied, and many would have missed the facetious note in her roughened voice.

When she was finished drinking, Karura returned the container and bowed neatly. The older women bowed in return, ending the session. The two turned away from the hopelessly broken and shattered rock face lying crumbled in the heat of the day and returned to the trail to the village.

"Karura-chan, I believe we have a visitor approaching," the jounin's quiet voice rasped. Karura's wearily downcast eyes snapped up to see her blueblood teammate approaching along the sandy trial ahead.

Karura perked up immediately at the sight of Sunamaru (not using chakra enhanced jumping to show off, she noted) down the obscure path. Sunamaru seemed to spot their approach and waited in the shade of a tree blooming in a rare dirt like patch of sand in a crevice near a bend in the trail as the path descended into the canyon to become a death trap to unwanted visitors to Suna.

"Yasakanai-sensei," he greeted, politely bowing to the women much taller than both genin.

Karura felt an eyebrow rise at the unusual show of respect towards her tessenjutsu teacher. He was up to something.

"Sunamaru-sama, you have missed our training session if you hoped to see it."

"Hai, sensei, but that wasn't my aim." He turned from the mildly suspicious look of the jounin to Karura. Karura knew her sensei wouldn't miss his unusually composed act either.

"Karura-kun, I would like you to come to the Oashisu with me." His eyes on her more intense than usual.

"What? Now?" She was incredulous at his brief, affirmative nod. He was totally crazy if she thought she was going to show up at the door of a place that once tried to turn her away at the door like _this_.

"I must smell like a camel's armpit, a _dead_ camel's armpit, stuffed with more dead camels, Sunamaru-_sama_, and you ask me that?"

Only a guy would ask her to go to their favorite cafe hang out like this. His eyebrow twitched at her twist on his title.

"No one would dare say anything if you're with me."

"That's not the point!" Karura had learned almost as soon as she was deemed a kunoichi in-training just how much Sunamaru and his family threw their aristocratic weight around. It had come with some unpleasant truths and ghastly shocks that she regretted learning.

She had been horrified when she learned that the bodyguards and other shinobi who she thought had been merely frustrated with Sunamaru had been in danger of physical punishment due to what she had thought was harmless fun when they spent time together and made their escapes; a brutal physical pain to complement the mild psychological pain that all shinobi who might fail the Kazekage's direct order felt.

In fact, many of the shinobi feared their Kazekage, and crossing the royal family was a very dangerous transgression for nin and civilians alike. She also now understood why she had to become a kunoichi: it was because of the autocracy of a ruthless Kage. Had her okaa-san resisted, she and Yashamaru would have never been allowed to see her again.

If anything made her regret becoming a kunoichi, it wasn't all the hours bleeding on the training fields, or freezing in the blasts of cold winds under a too thin blanket in the desert, it wasn't even how rarely she saw her okaa-san and the way the instructors tried to separate her from Yashamaru at the academy.

It was they way her okaa-san had cried.

"I'll meet you there once I don't smell bad enough to make every other patron in the room faint, okay?"

For a shinobi, Sunamaru didn't hide his impatience well. He huffed and groused.

"Fine. Just be there in half an hour."

Then he was gone. Karura rolled her eyes. Boys. Sure, she could sprint through the entrance valley, take a soldier quick shower, and then run with chakra fueled speed to get there but you know what? She wasn't and he could just deal!

Her sensei seemed to sense the irritation that was rolling off her in waves stronger than her abundant BO.

The jounin looked at her serenely. "Would you like to keep walking?"

"Let's."

By the time she arrived at Oashisu, clean, in her spare training outfit, with its knee length black robe lightly mended, tan belt, and burgundy scarf, and using an unhurried gait, she was far more than a half hour late and quite pleased with herself. Her stroll through the wider streets of the nicer part of the city had been pleasant. You could actually get some fresh air and walk without bumping into people all the time there. The houses were nicer (still an ugly shape though), and the storefronts there were lively and displayed flowers, fabrics, jewelry, and snack foods. She had a real weakness for roasted chestnuts.

Being able to travel freely now that she was a genin was great, and most of the shopkeepers were just as friendly towards her as to they were towards the other customers. Only a few flinched when her pale skin and hair and hitai-ite clashed in their minds.

Sunamaru had commandeered their preferred booth and already had the establishments finest water, lavender scented and lemon flavored cooled with ice brought in all the way from Yuki no Kuni, before him. If she looked, she could see a waitress at the ready off in a dimly lit corner nearly biting her nails in anticipation of a request.

The café had a laid back atmosphere and was a favorite of shinobi of the higher echelons as well as well to do civilians. The place was immaculate, lavishly decorated with wares from as far away as Nami no Kuni, and perfumed with spices and flowers. It was a far cry from the tenements.

The first time she had come here with Sunamaru, she had endured questioning looks but nothing more. Then when she had come alone to meet him here, an unknowing Maitre'De had told her in no uncertain terms 'her kind' was not welcome at such an establishment, kunoichi or not. The way the man had blanched when Sunamaru showed up in the middle of her arguing with him had been priceless. Whatever happened to him?

Karura ignored Sunamaru, who didn't even open his eyes as he slumped on one hand propping up his chin, and looked out the window of the booth. The café was high up in a fancy building with a garden on the roof of the building below to provide a flow of fresh, moist, cool air through the pane less windows. A few pampered songbirds would even alight on the sills now and again. Karura could entertain herself looking out the window for as long as he could be stubborn and he knew it.

He opened his black eyes to glare at her as she just smiled jauntily. Around them, many tables were filled with whole teams, but it wasn't unusual for him to call on her alone. He needed to vent now and then and she'd listen to him down in the spot in the canyon or other lonely places in the stark landscape. He hated the council clearly and thoroughly, and all they wanted to do. It really made him stressed and feel trapped by his destiny. It was okay usually to listen, although what he said sometimes got just plain weird.

The chatter of the surrounding nin and playful chirruping of birds in the cheerful atmosphere totally ruined his attempt at cowing her. Sighing in surrender, he pulled out a long and narrow box made of compressed paper – _expensive_ – and placed it on the table before her. She looked at the length and noted it was considerably more than the width in dimension, longer than she was tall.

"Mine?" In query.

"You see anybody else?" Sarcastic.

Karura looked at him carefully in appraisal, trying to glean any clues about the unusual gesture. He was wearing his own training outfit, black and deepest brown, and his spiky brown hair had grown out enough that he kept it in a very short ponytail. He was also starting to get noticeably taller than her, but he could still pitch a fit like a child. So what was this about?

Her hands, neatly wrapped with snowy bandages from the rigors of her training, lifted the top of the box then dropped it with a clatter.

Inside the box, nestled in still more precious paper, was unmistakably a battle fan. Not just any kind of battle fan either, but a genuine Iron Fan, the design and quality tessenjutsu had originally been created for. Karura could see her own astonished expression and the hitai-ite bearing the symbol of the Sunagakure on her forehead reflected back at her in the perfectly polished black lacquer.

In near awe, she carefully fitted her fingers into the box, suddenly wishing she'd spent time on her short, blunt nails, to painstakingly fit her cloth bandaged hands around the fan and lift it. It's low weight betrayed it's large size, a jutsu effect no doubt, because the extensive amount of reinforcing steel (the term Iron Fan came from the fact the original fans dated back to before steel making had been perfected Yasakani-sensei had once explained during a lecture on theory) and heavy lacquer on the wood should have made it tremendously heavy.

Inside, she knew the paper of the fan would be reinforced by chakra lines and have steel hidden within the slender spokes of more lacquered wood -he wouldn't have paid for less- between the folds, with the entirety of the fan covered in intricate and a carefully laid network of seals to help with the flow of charka and the execution of jutsus. She dared to open the fan slightly, and the quality of the thick, creamy paper immediately told her that not only was it the best money could buy, it could even be used as a contract for a summon! She delicately opened a few more blades and saw a pattern of the blue moons beginning to appear.

Carefully folding the Iron Fan until it was closed again, she raised her eyes and looked, jaw dropped, at her teammate.

"Sunamaru-sama?" She breathed, for once forgetting to mock the title.

Her teammate looked at her across the table with a very self-satisfied smirk under his dark eyes. Completely involuntarily, she felt her heart flutter. When had he gotten cute?

"For me? But why?" She felt like she could barely breathe. A battle fan like this must have cost more than her entire apartment building and everything in it!

"Well, I can't have you slowing me down with crappy fans, now can I?" he drawled. He gave her one of his smirks.

The flutter snuffed out, and her answering smirk was as warm and inviting as a rusty razor blade.

"Oh, you're going to find out who is slow, Sunamaru-_sama_," the title exceptionally acidic, "you just wait until I use this!" She lifted up the box with her new fan in her bandaged hands.

"Now Yasakani-sensei and I can get serious!"

The son of the Kazekage merely 'hmph'ed in response. He lifted up his iced beverage and made a signal to summon the fidgety waitress.

"Go for it."

* * *

AN: Yasakani-sensei is an own character. Please don't use her without asking.

Yasakani-sensei took up tessenjutsu when she realized her height (she is 6'1) would make her stand out too much, and that 'subtlety' was out of the question. Part of her skill comes from the unusually large fan she uses.

Also, I wanted to make a distinction about my usage of the word 'ghetto', I mean it only in the sense that a person is forced to live there. It says nothing about their caliber

Translations:

Okaa-san- mother spoken respectfully

Kamaitachi no Jutsu- Cutting Whirlwind Technique

Genin, chuunin, jounin- ranks of ninja. In order: low ninja, middle ninja, high ninja

Sunagakure no Sato – Village Hidden in the Sand

Tessenjutsu – factual martial art revolving around using fans

Tessen – a fan used by samurai in combat scenarios

Kazekage – Wind shadow, strongest ninja in Suna

Oashisu - Oasis

Yuki no Kuni – Snow Country

Nami no Kuni –Wave Country

Names:

Yasakani – a type of ancient bead with important religious meaning in Japan that is also used for decoration. Tessen no Yasakani translates as Yasakani of the Iron Fan.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything associated with it whatsoever. Alas, and woe.

Written in the Dust

Chapter 4

Bone collapsed into itself with an audible crunch as the internal framework crumpled under the relentless external pressure. Blood was forced from it's boundaries within straining veins and arteries, oozing then gushing through every pore, out every orifice, leaking than spurting from rupturing capillaries into collapsing lungs, the walls squeezing against each other, squashing into bloody water the last of the delicate aveoli.

Then the air pressure changed. The body hung suspended in the humid, motionless air for a brief moment, and then plummeted to the damp grass with a wet squelch.

Karura sighed as her jutsu faded. Was this the best the Ame shinobi could offer? There were no significant chakra signatures in the vicinity detectable even to her jounin level senses. She closed her battle fan with a slight scowl, planted the solid end into the moist turf beside her and leaned on it, closing her eyes and making a face of disgust.

She had hoped to get some good practice in the form of rigorous combat before she took the jounin exams when they returned to Suna, but a this rate, she'd might as well be looking to pass an academy exam for all the challenge these nin provided. So much for her hope that she would find a shinobi trained by Hanzo himself to fight. Here at this distant point on the outskirts of the small country, it wasn't even raining.

This A rank mission held so much promise when read on paper: the Ame no Kuni, headed by a mentally unstable daimyo, the abundant battle veteran nin, the potential for jungle warfare, and the top secret papers holding critical information being carried by one skittish lard of a courier. Both she and Sunamaru had been eagerly anticipating this mission, but this utter lack of suitable challengers was almost annoying.

Her attunement to the wind allowed her to feel the spinning shuriken coming through the fronds before she even opened her eyes. She simply pivoted in place to dodge the projectiles and removed a kunai hidden in her sash to slash the attached wires meant to bind her to her fan, rendering her helplessly tied up. As if tying her up to her own battle fan to capture her was even possible.

She felt another vibration through the air. He wasn't that stupid… yes, he was.

Shifting her weight, she brought the heavy black fan up at angle, using all her strength as a kunoichi now that the weight altering seal was gone, and easily smashed the skull and brain of the assaulting shinobi, spattering juicy, fleshy shrapnel and bone chips onto the misty ground.

Her senses picked up his friend hiding in the nearby damp foliage at the edge of the clearing she stood in. A moment later and she knew he had retreated. Good choice.

She extended her senses with greater force. All unfamiliar chakra signatures were definitely fading. The enemy had given up entirely. Encounter concluded.

Karura looked down at her robe. The deep blue material didn't have so much as errant drop of blood thanks to her manipulations of the air around her. What a weak battle this had been.

Fixing the fan she had now grown into on to her back after a brief cleaning, she pooled chakra in her legs to vault through the verdant landscape towards the nearest familiar chakra signature. At least there were beautiful plants and fungi to look at here; the dense plant-life somewhat reminded her of her childhood. The rain forest was almost as nice as the Great Bamboo Forest back in Kusa, although she had the benefit of seeing that forest illuminated by sunlight while this jungle was darkened by endlessly dark grey skies.

"Karura-kun," her gruff sensei greeted as she materialized in the low mists. Kadomatsu-sensei, her genin cell teacher and squad leader even now, was still scanning with clear eyes for any returning enemies with half his senses and observing the still shuddering courier with the other. It was a good thing the weenie had a carriage and assistant to keep him coddled on this journey.

"I don't think there was a jounin in that group, sensei. Was that attack serious or a diversion?"

"Possibly a diversion. I sent Sunamaru-sama too scout ahead for ambushes and traps," he responded in the deep baritone that seemed so perfect for his heavy build. Her burly sensei didn't have mark on his standard issue sand uniform either.

Karura looked to the northern direction of the road to spot a brief puff of disturbed earth that meant a scuffle or trap detonation. Sunamaru was hogging all the fun. She supposed their other teammate, Yashamaru for this mission due to the client's… lack of physical fitness, was scouting the perimeter of the temporary stronghold the courier had insisted his carriage made. Karura took a second look at the quivering jowls of the collapsed courier. Was he having a heart attack?

Karura looked to the thick canopy of the trees a moment before Yashamaru descended.

"Nee-san?" he inquired, brown eyes everyone said looked exactly like her own checking her over her with gentle concern. Even in battle, he was so warm and kind. She smiled back easily.

"I don't have so much as a scratch, Yashamaru," she reassured him. "But our client…" she said with a tilted head and pointed look towards the lump on the grassy ground, accompanied by a hovering assistant waving a dispatch folder at him to cool him.

Yashamaru gave her another kind smile before going to the courier who answered his polite inquiries about the status of his health with a whimper.

Sunamaru appeared running lightly over the dewy grass before stopping in front of his sensei. His shinobi uniform, without a scratch, was stubbornly his own design rather than that of typical chuunin from Suna. Then again, so was hers.

"A few small traps. A genin could have seen them. We should get moving in case the survivors report to someone competent."

Their sensei nodded and walked towards the courier and Yashamaru as she raised an eyebrow at Sunamaru.

Even though he was still technically underneath the direction of their sensei, Sunamaru had gotten into the habit of leading a while ago. He even bossed around jounins to whom he had no work links, but they all heeded him. They wouldn't dare do otherwise. It helped that he knew what he was doing and listening to him was worthwhile.

He could be surprisingly thoughtful, as demonstrated by how he had thought to buy her an Iron Fan she could grow into so she would never have to replace it (given, she found out it was the Lady Kazekage who had pointed that out to him and suggested a scout record her okaa-san's height as a probable match, most likely because there was no way she would pay for a fan like that twice). Although, it bothered her on some level that he had such license and unrestrained authority but it followed given how the Kazekage's family behaved and was treated over all.

As she had spent more time studying other villages and countries, it became obvious that with the exception of the Hi no Kuni, with its village perched on a volcano in the middle of a forest, the Kages ruling above the law was normal. The Kage was strict but day-to-day life was perfectly livable. In fact, the Kazekage didn't even occasionally massacre any of the people groups in the Kaze no Kuni. Things could be much worse.

It explained why her okaa-san and the other refugees took their chances crossing the dessert to find a ninja village in the slim hope that it would take them in. Shinobi weren't exactly known for their charity, but Suna had reluctantly accepted them, and it's shinobi watched as diligently over the newly confirmed citizens as much as the native born people.

Just the way Sunamaru looked in the eyes when they were alone in their old hideout in the canyon, when he wanted to protect the village and do the honorable thing and the elders wanted to push their shady agendas… Of course, lately he'd been gripping about the horse-faced girls they'd been hinting he should marry.

The Kazekages married fairly young, apparently.

It certainly didn't help that old bags of bones were jumpy now that Akasuna no Sasori appeared to have turned missing-nin.

After loading up the courier and his charge (he hadn't been having a heart attack, he just soiled himself), the team made their way through the thick vegetation and perpetual mists to the martial outpost that marked the final leg of journey, checked in, then wound their way uneventfully from the mits into continuous bitter winds and to the manor house at the edge of Ame no Kuni and Tori no Kuni, the home of the nobleman who was to take the documents.

Karura carefully observed the staff and help scampering around the garden edged courtyard as they began to escort the waddling and huffing courier towards the ornate doors to the entry room. The estate marked the last cultivatable stretch of land before the land fouled to become the northern wind blasted waste of the Tsuchi no Kuni. The birds that were the nearby regions name sake were relegated to hiding in scrubby brush to escape the harsh winds and intermittent cold rain. The manor would be difficult to make solvent as an agricultural enterprise, but the rock of the lower steppes may have held mines of precious metal or a commodity like salt. The application submitted for hiring the Suna shinobi suggested old money rather than active trade.

The guards at the door halted them to check the verification of their identity and papers one final time before escorting them into the expansive room. The glint of ostentatious gold was bad enough, but the hovering, tittering women, in ornate silks and elaborate hairstyles was worse. Karura maintained a neutral expression, but secretly snarled at the looks they were sending her two teammates. Seeing Sunamaru and Yashamaru ogled that way bothered her (the giggling group seemed to pass on the middle-aged Kadomatsu-sensei, must be the turban… right), but for totally different reasons for each. The team had almost passed by the colorful collection of mindlessness when the girl wearing the most expensive gown choose to speak.

"You must be Sunamaru-sama." A measured purr from a honey sweet voice carefully crafted to tantalize male senses. It made Karura want to maim something. "I am Aisubeki-hime."

_Oh, I bet you just are._

The girl looked demurely over a truly ornate fan modestly concealing her face except for her large doe-like eyes framed with ropes of pearls woven into her flower festooned hair. She was totally ignoring the rest of the team.

"I look forward to seeing you at dinner this evening. I hope your meeting with my otou-sama goes well." With that she delicately floated down the gilded hall surrounded by her tittering entourage.

Karura hoped the vein on her forehead wasn't standing out. Much. Although her uniform was perfectly acceptable for a kunoichi in the field, next to the nearly sparkling hime she looked she was in rags.

Borrowed rags.

Chewed by rats.

She was equally certain the weather and traveling had done a number on her own hair which felt like it was standing on end and pointing in so many directions it must look like she had been struck by a raiton jutsu.

She was proud of herself control at that moment, but nothing fooled Yashamaru. Her trusty brother was at her side in a moment.

"Don't worry, nee-san. If you had time to get that fancied up, you wouldn't be worth anything either."

The good-natured whisper below all but shinobi level hearing had her suppressing a snicker and lightly leaning into her brother to show gratitude for much needed support. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sunamaru notice the sibling interaction and regard it with an unreadable expression as the doorway was finally opened and their sensei lead the group into the meeting room. What was his problem?

A few hours later, Sunamaru wasn't the dealing with a girl in dangerous mood. It was Yashamaru.

"Nee-san!" he yelped desperately. "Don't throw your kunai in the manor! We'll never be able to pay the repair bill! Nee-san!"

The seething kunoichi was sporting dual handfuls of kunai. One between each set of calloused knuckles now that her brother had talked her into putting down her battle fan.

_Of all the stupid, mindless, simpering little gold diggers!_

Karura swallowed the words, knowing walls have ears, but brandishing lethal weapons only soothed her temper so much. The dinner following the successful delivering of the papers had been a farce. The fan wielding kunoichi knew shinobi were rarely treated to such an honor as they were usually treated like the bloodstained murderers they were: with aversion and barely concealed contempt. Which meant only one thing: the noblemen had his sights set on an alliance with the Kazekage and his hussy of a daughter was the avenue of choice. Karura would have given her some credit as they sat down to a lavish banquet if she had seemed at least slightly calculating, but no, she was an empty-headed, well trained, flirtation expert to the core. Watching her hang all over Sunamaru, since they just _happened_ to be near each other since he was guest of honor, had Karura gripping her chopsticks a little too tightly. At least she was seated between her sensei and Yashamaru so she didn't have to pretend to make small talk with anyone.

Sunamaru was appropriately diplomatic and polite, nodding his shaggy head at the hime's prattling, and Karura resisted the urge to use her chopsticks to put a few more holes in the little ditz's head. All the air might escape and deflate her noggin.

When imagining cathartic murder got old, Karura instead began analyzing the dinning hall. Amidst the intricately carved woodwork, carefully inlaid precious metals, priceless wall scrolls, and finest silks, she could just detect the smallest cracks, a subtle sag in the roof support beams, and the slightest tilt to the foundation structure itself.

The building was beginning to collapse, and the noblemen and his household were trying to hide it. She pressed her sense of smell, and beneath the smell of perfume, incense, and savory food, she could just detect the decaying smell of rot. They must be really desperate to make a try a Sunamaru.

Was the whole mission a scam? The thought, along with her carefully screening of the nobles chatter and servants whispers had her slowly seeing red.

"It was a scam Yashamaru!" she barely managed to restrain the accusation to an intense whisper. "They want that little hime to get in Sunamaru's pants to get themselves out of debt! Their lord hates this aristocrat so much no one will help them! Didn't you listen to the whispers during that schmooze fest in there?"

"Yes, I did," he said, attempting to calm his sister with a gentle tone and open, up-raised hands. "But Sunamaru-sama and Kadomatsu-taichou weren't fooled for a minute, nee-san."

Karura glared at empty space. She would feel better if the other members of their team weren't still with the aristocrat and his gaudy little ornament of a daughter.

She and Sunamaru had gotten so close lately. As the pressures of being heir had begun to weigh on Sunamaru he had begun to come to her to vent. He would maintain the perfect persona all day, ever the ideal image of the heir before the council and other antagonists, then in front of her alone, he would crack.

He would talk about the pointlessness of village politics, rant about the infuriating daimyo who kept trying to bankrupt the village, rave about the idiocy of the people he was surrounded by who just followed status quo. Sometimes the ferocity of his occasional shrieks and shouts during those times worried her, the depth of his hatred trigging an internal reaction that made her begin to, slightly, worry about him. He always calmed down in the end though, and he had always been intense, but he didn't need more stress from a stupid, over primped hime when it's not going to happen!

A low growl escaped her throat and she substituted the multiple kunai for an equal number of senbon. They rolled between her knuckles better. If he couldn't show his feelings, she'd show them for him. That's what she could do for him as his friend if her own lowly position allowed for nothing else.

The door clicked open and a maid bowed through Sunamaru and their sensei. Karura slipped the senbon away and she and her brother lined up to hear the report. Their teammate and sensei looked far too grave to merely have warded off a poorly thought out marriage proposal or even suggestion of alliance.

"Kadomatsu-taichou?" Yashamaru ventured.

Her grim faced sensei made a signal and they grouped together to lower their voices for privacy and secrecy. He was always deadly serious and a martinet in all but the most extenuating of circumstances, but rarely did such a heaviness seem to follow him.

"We have a complication," he breathed, the lines of age on his face more starkly prominent than she had ever seen, even then the time when a hit with an explosive tag during a mission left a gaping hole in her back.

"The aristocrat has something he wants us to take back to Suna." The older man looked at his team with a desperate seriousness that had Karura looking to Sunamaru, who did not look back. "The noblemen's otou-san, the previous head of the household was given a certain teapot by a monk for safekeeping, a monk belonging to an order dedicated to exorcisms."

Karura felt a pulse of apprehension. Where was this leading?

"The fool blabbed the family had the artifact upon inheriting it in a ridiculous bid for power through intimidation. What he got was far more than his feeble mind could foresee. His lord has cut him off until he is rid of it." The near silent words fell past chapped lips. He paused.

"What is so significant about this teapot, taichou?" Whispered Yashamaru.

Their sensei and Sunamaru were both quiet, then Kadomatsu-sensei answered.

"Within it is sealed the Ichibi." Karura and Yashamaru gasped soundlessly.

All the citizens of Sunagakure knew of the evil monstrosity known as the Ichibi, the Shukaku. All the dangerous and vile aspects of the desert incarnate. The former jinchuuriki of the biju and his manipulation of iron particles from the grains of desert had inspired the unique jutsu of the Sandaime Kazekage who lead them. The last container and Ichibi both had been captured and hidden away by a supremely dedicated group of monks from a rival country, but no one from Suna had managed to uncover its location despite intensive searching and investigation.

It was known to be pure evil; a horror that had chakra dense enough and evil enough to physically crush frail civilians and make even the most stalwart shinobi mentally break.

Kadomatsu-sensei finished his explanation tonelessly.

"The otou-san was a good man but with a dolt for a son. The teapot was the sealing location for the Shukaku by the monk, and was to be kept in the vaults beneath this manor where the monk hoped the solid rock they are carved into in this isolated location would keep it safe. But the current head of the house actually thought spreading rumors of its location would bring him power. Now, he can't keep it, and no one he has appeared to want so much as go near it."

Her sensei paused to look meaningfully at her and her brother.

"He has begged Sunamaru-sama to take it to Sunagakure."

"Taichou," Yashamaru mumbled in profound horror.

Karura looked stunned at her childhood friend. The Ichibi! Shukaku! That kind of a burden… he didn't need another! And what would the council do upon finding out they had such a monster? Living, sentient, malevolent chakra? Her heart sank beyond the carpeted floor.

"Sunamaru-sama," her sensei nearly mouthed, "this is a decision for a member of the Kazekage's' family. I can only advise you."

Sunamaru gave the barest of harsh nods and Karura's mind churned wildly. This low rung noble was unfathomably, fatally stupid. The monk had probably watched every one his comrades die to entrap the Shukaku and seal it. It was probably trapped in a teapot simply because it was all they had with them. Or had left.

And that fool had bragged? Advertised the location of a biju? As if anyone would ever believe he controlled it. How far had the rumors spread since he'd opened his mouth? They would not be the last nin through here for certain. They couldn't leave the Ichibi to be found by a rival village or organization. Could not. And when the next squad came through to find their prize gone, chances were better than not this place would be razed to the ground after all available information was extracted to leave no trace for others to sift through for clues.

Karura shook her had once as Yashamaru grimaced at what was surely the same set of conclusions she had drawn. They couldn't even try to dispose of it. The people in this manor would tell those who followed after their team who taken the Shukaku. The common people here would never endure a shinobi's torture, and word would get back to Suna that their team had been granted free access to it. Even if they tried to take the teapot to get rid of it after razing the manor under pretense and claiming the Ichibi was never there, someone in the manor had enough brain power to ask for the Kazekage's son and his team to travel publicly to add the potential of diplomatic fall out if things turned bloody. If they tried to discard the thing their team would be caught.

As for destroying it? Damaging the seal would just release the demon. She couldn't completely suppress a shudder at the thought.

Karura turned sympathetically towards the dear friend who bore the burden of responsibility with a choice that was no choice. Then his eyes flicked to Karura, the wildness in them startling her internally.

"Karura-kun. I want a word alone." Toneless, and an order again but given the circumstances she didn't blame him. He turned to move into a smaller side room and didn't even look back to see if she followed. Karura made a slight a face at the fact he was taking her willingness to let him see her alone when he wanted to so lightly. Although she did it partly because she knew she was certainly the only real friend he had, since pretty much everyone else he knew was trying to manipulate him or depose him, that didn't mean he could flaunt it in front of Yashamaru and Kadomatsu-sensei like that.

Karura exchanged a look with her brother before treading soundlessly after Sunamaru on shinobi feet. The little side room was a comfortable sitting area with cushy chairs and pillows. Sunamaru however, stood as it surrounded by poisoned senbon.

As soon as she was within grasp, he pulled her towards him and threw his arms around her shoulders seeking comfort. Karura was shocked at the action, his much taller frame and broad shoulders heavy on her own smaller frame. He had never been this forward, during his awkward flirting as a genin.

"Karura," he breathed, leaving off the honorific completely to her astonishment, "there is no way to hide that chakra signature from Kazekage-sama. There are seals in place here, but we can't replicate them completely in transport."

He pulled back to look at her, on his familiar face a desperation that stood her hair on end.

"They will know the moment we attempt to transport such powerful seals through the wards at the gate."

She could only blink up at him; the tenseness running through his shoulders moved down his arms and he tightened his grip on her.

"They'll use try to use it. Those old fools will try. That stupid daimyo and his hatred for his own protectors, for all we are, will see it as an opportunity. We have to keep it from the council's control."

Shocked, Karura nodded. Anything other response seemed as though he might mentally break from the strain of it. He was pale, panting, sweating finely and vaguely disorientated. The illusion of unflappable ninja was cracking and falling away like clumps of brittle sand.

"Karura, I…" he trailed off, seemingly just then realizing how he was holding her. "Karura, I only trust you."

Her heart hit her throat. His entire manner was too mercurial, shifting chaotically from one emotion to the next. Despair, anger, and this one was… just what was this?

"Out of everyone, only you. Kadomatsu-sensei will report immediately to Kazekage-sama either way and he would never forgive me for leaving the Ichibi here."

"Karura…" he seemed to have a moment of internal warfare, and then gently loosened his hold to simply place his hands on her shoulders. He looked her right in her eyes. What he said next was with a conviction that left her more shocked than anything else that had occurred that evening.

"You are very precious to me." If it were possible, her eyebrows shot up even higher.

"Stay with me. Marry me. We'll take the jounin exam as soon as we get back and recover. We can get married right after." Karura felt the floor tilt beneath her feet. The room was spinning. It was a good thing he was holding her steady. The only good thing.

"I'll look like a hero for bringing back the Ichibi, and not even the council will object to you once you're a jounin with your skill, especially with the Iron Fan, even if you are a refugee from the camps."

Somewhere in the vertigo spawned Charybdis of her mind, Karura clamped on to an anchor hold of practical reasoning for decision making in this mad whirl of uncertainty.

Marry him???

She thought he was cute at times sure and he was her oldest friend outside of Yashamaru, but to marry him, call him husband and bear all the crushing pressures of the status of Lady Kazekage? Could she still help him if she had to deal with all that, too?

"Sunamaru-sama, how can I?" Karura whispered back. To his credit, he let her argue. She took a small comfort in that. He wasn't that far gone.

"I'm just a simple kunoichi, and by chance at that. I can't be the Kazekage's wife." She looked him in the eye willing him to understand. "That's too much for me."

"It isn't," he insisted almost desperately, his look slightly more manic that she wanted to face. Then he laughed derisively, "and you are far from simple." He sobered up. "You'll be taught, like you were taught to be a kunoichi. I... I just need you to be my back up. To be there for me. Karura you are the only women I can trust. It _has_ to be you."

She hesitated. He was dangerously… off right now.

"I can only think about it, Sunamaru-sama. This is so terribly important, not just for you, but all of Sunagakure, my brother, Yasakani-sensei, everyone."

She took a deep, steadying breath, closing her eyes briefly to collect her thoughts, willing away the lavish room so far from home and the pressures that had come with entering it. "Let me think on it."

Sunamaru seemed content with that- for now. He moved his hands from her shoulders to her hips and placed his hitai-ite against hers. Exhaling, he breathed out the manic stress that had built up within him.

He pulled back to look at her again.

"You'll say yes to me," he murmured softly. "You will."

* * *

AN: In answer to my loyal (and only) reviewer **laurelsblue**:

It was a crush, but Sunamaru was such a jerk as a genin it was simply too much fun for her too use it against him and nothing came of it. She is still very dear to him because she was the first friend and only friend he ever had who was wiling to be his friend just because she could be.

Kadomatsu-sensei is an own character. Please don't use him without permission.

Translations:

Ame no Kuni: Rain Country

Hanzo: Leader of the Rain shinobi and a hero of renowned skill and ability. Probably named for a historical ninja of the same name.

Daimyo- civilian head honcho of the entire country

Kusa- Grass, as in the Grass Country

Hi no Kuni- Fire Country

Okaa-san- 'mother' spoken respectfully

Kaze no Kuni – Wind Country, within lies Sunagakure

Akasuna no Sasori – Sasori of the Red Sand. Sasori itself means 'scorpion'

Tori no Kuni – Bird Country

Tsuchi no Kuni – Earth Country

Otou-sama – 'otou-san' spoken with grandiose respect

raiton jutsu – lightening technique

Nee-san- 'sister' spoken respectfully

Ichibi- literally one-tail, one of the biju

Shukaku- name of the Ichibi, taking the form a tanuki (the Japanese raccoon dog)

Biju- tailed beasts of the Naruto universe composed of living chakra

Hitai-ite – a ninjas forehead protector, engraved the symbol of their country

-taichou suffix - Captain

-hime suffix – Lady or Princess, it is a general term for women of rank

Names:

Kadomatsu-Traditional Japanese New Year decoration made of bamboo

Aisubeki-hime: Literally 'Lovable Princess'

It is mildly alarming just how much reviewing, or a lack thereof, affects my enthusiasm for my hobby.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything associated with it whatsoever. Alas, and woe.

Written in the Dust

Chapter 5

The pile of papers hit the desk with a soft clatter, the papers sliding with a flutter into disarray across the rough wood, a consequence of the careless discard.

The quiet room was only dimly lit by the soft glow of the few candles, leaving shadows lying peacefully along the floors and curling up in distant, carefully swept corners. The deep sigh of the person in the secluded retreat was only accompanied by the mild rush of the desert wind outside of the carefully shuttered windows, which were not so much as rattled by the nighttime gusts.

Karura sighed again before wearily lowering herself onto a plush, comfortable kneeling cushion. The latest round of nonsense with the council made her appreciate all the years Sunamaru had been forced to attend meetings, watching the proceedings unobtrusively from the corner as genin. The council room a windowless chamber, suffocating and oppressive at best with it's stale air, heavy gloom, and unrelenting, harsh scrutiny. Cold eyes zeroed on every minute gesture, word, breath, and judged with no mercy. The smallest misstep was instantly latched onto and exploited, seen as a chance to politically eviscerate the opposition.

When the Sandaime was still the Kazekage, the council members spoke with suitable respect and were able enough to conceal their fears of the strongest Kage to head Suna; the Master of the Iron Sand. Attitudes had definitely changed since his sudden disappearance while traveling alone through the desert with his wife on one of their special trips to reconnect. The sudden lack of leadership and subsequent power vacuum had left the entirety of Sunagakure no Sato at a loss and the ambitious noblemen scrabbling for influence. No one would have suggested that their Kage needed a bodyguard, even a ceremonial one, while traversing the shifting dunes he knew better than anyone, and no sign of him or his wife could be found by even the best trackers in the village. His disappearance was a wholly unexpected and unprepared for tragedy.

The village leaders had wasted no time in ambushing the vulnerable Sunamaru. They hadn't even let him recover from the shock of learning his parents were gone before rushing him through funeral preparations and hustling him into policy meetings. Karura had never been close to her in-laws and the family was very formal even with each other, but she knew Sunamaru and his parents loved each other anyway and her okaa-san-in-law, if not her otou-san-in-law had developed a mutual fondness with her. Sunamaru deserved at least a second to mourn.

Karura rolled her neck to work out the kinks the memory of this latest travesty of a productive process intensified, curling the knots in the muscles tighter. The ensuing polite discussion spiced with thinly veiled malice made it clear Sunamaru was all but on his own.

The village councilmen had loathed the loss of the opportunity to marry one of their daughters to the future Kage, and loathed more the fact that the chance was lost to a pale alien who had, they vaguely hinted what gossipy, bitter, rejected would-be fiancés so often scoffed, 'seduced' the heir. They were no more pleased that the new Kage's unwanted choice of a refugee bred wife and her equally unwanted brother were given their rightful place in the council. If it wasn't for Chiyo-baa-sama and Ebizo-jii insisting on their recognition they might have been thrown out altogether and as it was they were severely undermined.

Unfortunately, since they were using tradition to guard the position of the Yondaime Kazekage and his remaining family, the revered siblings couldn't shield the family from a written, contractual tradition pointed out by a gratingly smug old man: producing an heir.

It was almost as bad as if the Village Council had brought up the Ichibi itself.

A polite rap on the study door was followed by the gentle voice of her brother.

"Nee-san?" came his voice, muffled by the dense wood.

"Come in," she sighed. Her brother looked around the partially opened door, concern in his eyes.

"How do you feel, Nee-san? That was a little worse than normal…"

She laughed lightly at his gentle, deliberate understatement as he padded across the room to kneel on another cushion opposite hers. He always knew how to calm her down and soothe her frazzled nerves.

"I feel… just slightly ill from it all, honestly," she admitted, shoulders sagging in tiredness. "The council has made their intentions clear. They will consider it a shirking of duty if I'm not… clearly on the way to producing a child soon." She ran her hands through her already disheveled hair. The council would never pass up a prime opportunity to undermine the family's authority and image and win a vote to expel the new Kazekage from his position. "There will be no means to override the councils majority if they try to vote Sunamaru-sama out."

She swallowed. There were also the penalties associated with such a resolution. That didn't bear thinking about.

"Nee-san," Yashamaru said, his voice warm and saddened. "You don't love him."

She smiled a half-smile at that. That had also been his argument when she had first told him she was going to accept the proposal of the son of the Kazekage and heir apparent of Sunagakure no Sato. It wasn't the constant pressure, not the threat of assassination from within and without, and not because she always would be unpopular with some for her original nationality, but a lack of love.

Then, like now, that was beside the point.

"You know, Yashamaru, that we can't have a life like Okaa-san and Otou-san had before the war. Those days are gone. Irretrievable."

She knew her tenderhearted brother still remembered those days, too, sometimes. The days with their grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins, when their otou-san would kiss their okaa-san before going out to work. When Obaa-chan would laughingly tease their okaa-san in ways that made her blush while the young sister and brother didn't even understand what the joke was.

Or even later, when their otou-san had hugged them good-bye for the last time, unafraid to die if it bought his small family time to run; not that two small children knew that then. Her brother thought of all the times the two of them had slept curled up together, "like puppies" their okaa-san said, to keep warm or just because they could when the cart rattled on rutted, stony trails throughout the cold nights. When they talked about anything and everything and played games of the imagination while the family traveled with a train of the war driven homeless in that old cart through heavy rains and muddy roads. When Karura had been the one to pull out Yashamaru's splinters when their okaa-san was away bartering, sometimes begging she now knew, for food. When Karura swept out the cart with just her hands while Yashamaru held the pony's frayed rope halter in thunder or dust storms.

Her brother still hoped, despite the stroke that had claimed their okaa-san and the unavoidable knowledge they had grown up to become bloody shinobi, they could have a family and life like they had a lifetime ago.

"He and I are friends and teammates, Yashamaru. We trust and respect each other. Our marriage is companionable and we care for each other. That's more than many people get," she murmured quietly, almost musing.

"But it's a child Nee-san," he whispered forlornly. "Won't they know, sense, you don't really love each other?"

She looked at her brother, his eyes moist and painfully earnest in his boyish face. He still got to her like little else.

"Sunamaru-sama and I will both love him or her. And you will too, right?" She leaned towards her brother to look at him reassuringly. "It'll be enough. We'll all be family."

"Nee-san. I'm going to see even less of you now." He didn't meet her caring eyes or see the way they darkened with disappointed hurt. "Once the village elders have an excuse to sequester you away, they will."

"No."

The firmness of her voice in the whispered conversation brought her brother's hanging head up sharply.

"I'm the Kazekage's wife, not the council's pet." She looked him straight in the eye. "You are a jounin level medic nin. And you are family!" She calmed down slightly and smiled at him. "Besides, who else am I going to trust with my kids health?"

Yashamaru blinked, surprised, and then smiled back. "You fooled both me and the elders with that demure act, didn't you?"

She sighed again, closing her tired eyes. "Just picking my battles. I couldn't win this one and I knew it." She smiled slightly. "And, who says I don't want kids of my own?" She looked at her brother again before continuing.

"Our family is just you and I now, Yashamaru, and the children will never have to worry about food or shelter, and they'll get a full education." She analyzed his reaction to her words. Yashamaru was clearly hearing, but not listening. He was as stubborn as she was despite his soft-spoken demeanor. She tried again.

"You'll help me even though you aren't happy about it, right?"

In response he looked at her keenly, and she felt he was finally going to get to the heart of his objections. She waited patiently as he gathered his nerve. The roiling winds of the desert canyons continued to barely brush against the outside of closed shutters.

"Nee-san. I don't like who you are when you are with him." Karura stiffened at the words. "He brings out the worst in you." The young wife felt her eyebrows rise in surprise. He had never divulged this before. "You disobeyed Okaa-san and got her in trouble with the ninja squads because of him. We left Okaa-san for the academy because of him. I've seen you kill so many people, screaming, like everyone back home was screaming. All because of him."

Karura was frozen, jaw agape. Just… how long had he held this in? Did he… think she had become some kind of monster because of Sunamaru?

"I've killed people," he whispered, "just like the people who killed Otou-san…"

"Yashamaru…" her throat was so constricted her voice barely escaped. The look of twisted emotional pain on his face was made her heart ache.

"And now you… His kids… They'll be like _him_, too!" his words were soft, but with the vehemence of the growl and conviction he could have roared.

"Yashamaru!" Aghast. She had never, never, heard her brother speak with that tone.

Pure hatred.

They sat in silence in the darkened room. The candles didn't even flicker in the stillness.

"Yashamaru," she began gently. "This is what is. We couldn't leave now if we wanted to." Why did her chest resist expanding as she tried to breathe? It made it so hard to speak. "Don't leave me alone here." His eyes shot up, shocked at her quiet plea. "Don't go because you hate him. I need you here."

He breathed in and out distressedly, the sound of it ragged. "I'll try Nee-san." He paused. "I can try for you." Shinobi rarely teared up, but her brother was a rare shinobi.

And suddenly she realized it. A simple epiphany. Yashamaru never should have been a nin. His heart was too big, too warm, and far too open. She looked at the face that everyone always told her exactly mirrored her own but for the slightest differences between masculine and feminine. She was always the first to want a hug but he always felt more strongly and loved more freely.

When she went to the academy she was proud of her skills in tessenjutsu, the number of solid rocks she smashed to powdery dust to be blown away by desert winds. Yashamaru would shyly tell their okaa-san, seated on her cushion sewing the newest batch of cloth, about how he'd learned to mend bones or how he had healed a sick kitten he found in the garbage cans outside of the apartment building.

He was not meant for a life of continuous killing, soaked in blood and hearing the hollow silence of breathing forcibly ceased. Maybe his usage of medical jutsu and largely remaining stationed at the hospital, because any administrator could see for all his training his disposition did not suit fieldwork, made it bearable. Medical jutsu let him pretend his work was compassionate and not the repair of flesh and blood tools of murder.

Either way, this life wasn't fair to him. And it was all her fault. She was the one who lead the academy authorities to their humble apartment, been the impetus for the testing of a tenderhearted refugee boy for wind chakra and the discovery of his coveted perfect chakra control.

Somewhere under there, under the genial front her brother put up, he must hate being a shinobi with everything he had. He must feel so alone when he saw how his sister loved her work. Loved it because it got her out of the tenements, got her a new friend to care for, because it was fun.

"Yashamaru," she said gently. He up looked at her, listening. "If anything ever happens to me, tell me you'll try to raise the child." His eyes widened at her words. "Let them be precious to you. Even if you have a family of your own don't leave them alone in this world."

He stared at her white-faced; mouth hanging horrified. He steeled himself and nodded, gathering himself for his whispered affirmation.

"I'll try, Nee-san."

* * *

AN: This was one was a bit of a downer, but the next chapter will be happier.

Review if you like it.

Translations:

Genin- low ninja, beginning rank

Sandaime- Third

Kazekage- Wind shadow, strongest shinobi in Suna

Okaa-san- 'mother' spoken respectfully

Otou-san- 'father' spoken respectfully

Ichibi- One-tail, a spirit beast composed of chakra

Nee-san- 'sister' spoken respectfully

jounin- high ninja, highest rank

Tessenjutsu – factual martial art revolving around using fans


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything associated with it whatsoever. Alas, and woe.

Written in the Dust

Chapter 6

"Kazekage-sama! Karura-sama!" the white-robed maid exclaimed happily, claiming the attention of both Suna leaders who were, so rarely it seemed, enjoying their time without the Village Council breathing down their necks in the relative seclusion of their private quarters in the Kage's tower.

Both parents rushed from their different parts of the open, airy living room in the comfortable, homey set of apartments.

Uzume, a well-respected local woman and one the maids assigned to the Kage's family, widely known for her sunny disposition, bounced on the balls of her sandal covered feet nearly squealing despite herself. Karura nearly skidded to a stop once reaching the crib on one side, leaves from the houseplants she'd been tending still in one hand, just as her husband arrived on the other side.

"Temari-sama opened her eyes! Look look look!" the chirped with enthusiastic abandon.

Karura would have bashed her head against her husband's if they weren't so used to being aware of each other's presence and location when they leaned in together to look at the infant girl. The tiny baby squirmed slightly, then blinked, then held her eyelids open just a moment longer than a blink.

"She has blue eyes!" Karura exclaimed in delighted surprise, dropping the leaves in a flutter of green to fall to the wooden floorboards and reaching for her hardly more than newborn daughter. She was tempted to take Temari from the shaded room to the sunny balcony of their private quarters just to see her squint.

"She has blonde hair and blue eyes! How cute!" the nursemaid gushed, acting far younger than her capable years would have suggested. Uzume had raised two daughters of her own and been a nanny to even more, but Karura had already learned she was still as excitable as a teenager when it came to infants.

Karura turned to her intrigued husband who was leaning over the crib. His dark eyes were focused solely on his new daughter's face and curiously evaluating the new development.

"I didn't know you had blue-eyed people in your family," Karura said with a grin. She had once mentioned to Sunamaru that her otou-san was blue-eyed when she had been taunted in front of him for being a blonde but brown-eyed as a child (the sniveling girls claimed she must be some ugly half-bred mongrel), but in the Kazekage's line, eyes of that light shade of color were a surprise.

Sunamaru pulled back to stand up straight and fluffed his now trimmed short hair in lightly embarrassed gesture. He considered briefly, as though digging up a seldom-visited memory, then said, "The First Kazekage obtained part of the funds to found Sunagakure by marrying an heiress from a blue-eyed blonde clan in the Hi no Kuni, the Namikaze."

Karura turned back to her daughter, less interested in his obscure family history than her own little girl, holding her carefully in her arms and snuggling her against the soft fabric of her casual robe as Uzume continued to coo from a polite distance in a fit of maternal overload. Karura had meticulously screened potential maids and caregivers and had been rewarded with one that loved her job and her charge. Karura adjusted her hold on the baby, making it easier to look into her tiny face as the maid continued fluttering around the room in a happy dither.

Karura mentally dismissed what she had heard of the Village Councils reaction to hearing of the birth of her daughter. Let the council grumble, dissatisfied by Temari's gender and fair coloring; they were blind fools. Besides, her own okaa-san had taken care of two children alone when she had to, so she could easily care for a dozen children with the army of servants that were kept around the Tower to keep up appearances. She could have another child to try for a boy to placate the crusty old men soon enough.

She had put it off, but it was time to think of the bane of her family's existence again now that her ceremonial isolation was officially over. Sunamaru had flat refused to talk about the never-ending schemes and plots that festered in that oppressive interrogation chamber of a forum hall during her late pregnancy and recovery period following childbirth. Today was the day he had promised to inform her about all that had transpired in her extended absence.

She waited until Temari was safely asleep in her crib, to prevent changes in her own mood from distressing her, and a still bubbly Uzume had been relieved for the evening to corner her sworn partner in his study to obtain the information. Sunamaru turned from the dusk lit window to face Karura with a somber expression. She wouldn't have expected good news anyway.

"The skirmishes that began following news of my Otou-sama disappearance have been getting worse," he started without preamble at the feel of her approaching chakra signature. His broad shoulders sagged in resignation and his head bowed a just a fraction. "Missing-nin that aren't 'missing' at all have been confirmed as nin on active duty from other Hidden Villages after comparing autopsy reports to the Bingo Book."

Karura frowned in displeased comprehension. Their enemies were not rogues and rabble. Someone was of influence with considerable resources was making a concentrated effort to wage a war of attrition with Suna. It was one or more of the other groups and confederations of shinobi, possibly operating under the direct orders of a daimyo.

"They are aiming for a full on war."

She fought the urge to spit on the carefully swept floors of her family home in disgust at the mere thought. She hated warfare. Completely. She may be a kunoichi, one who rarely felt happier than when she was in the freely flowing winds of the desert and wielding her fan, creating breezes, whirlwinds and tornadoes out of the stillness to dance before her, and she certainly would kill anyone who threatened her family without a miniscule moment of compunction, but war she hated.

War was selfish, stupid, mindless; waged by arrogant men with money and violent psychopaths at their command that attacked the innocent and uninvolved for their petty egos. The war in Kusa had been little more than a continuous series of bloody routes and massacres. The invading armies that had marched on their homes, trampling the grass and wildflowers in their way, had deliberately focused on the civilian populations. The grasslands were sparsely populated small villages that were surrounded by large tracks of open land for the herds, and the abundant resources meant there was no need for disagreements or tension between settlements. The villages and hamlets, consisting of straw huts in level fields and decorated with carefully woven, colorful blankets, were as open and without obstacles as the open prairie itself. There was no defense, mental or physical, against invaders who murdered simply because they could, for money, who attacked people who had never experienced violence.

Her stomach churned with bitter acid. It all came down to the most despicable parts of human nature. Chaos, destruction, pain. What had it brought anyone? Even money couldn't have cured the lack of peace that would haunt the souls of those who had committed those crimes.

She closed her eyes for a moment. It was all such a waste. Her okaa-san mourned everyday of her life on the road and in Suna because of war. Directly and indirectly, war had taken everything her loving okaa-san ever had. All of it was completely and utterly wrong.

"From the beginning," Sunamaru affirmed, drawing Karura out of her bitter recollections. "One of your brothers men from the hospital, a man named Baki-san, has provided information that the daimyo of Suna himself is behind some these attacks."

Karura looked at her husband in wide-eyed horror, and he wasn't done yet.

"The Village Council is refusing to hear a word said against him in the name of preventing seditious behavior. Chiyo-baa-sama is near sick of their hypocrisy. It is not a secret that some of them favor their trade franchises over the village's very existence.

"What's worse," he interrupted her before she could comment, her mounting righteous fury building, "they dare claim the Ichibi is becoming a danger! That the teapot isn't enough and because of the _rogues_," he hissed the word, "they think the Shukaku should be weaponized for defensive purposes."

"No," she growled in flat denial of the plan, at the very insane idea! The last thing anybody needed was an attempt by anyone to control _that_. She had seen broken shinobi laying bed-ridden in the silent and echoing halls of the Sunagakure hospital psychological ward that had never recovered from facing the monstrosity in the raw, when the biju roamed free over the star lit dunes. It was a fools endeavor and far more likely to result in Suna's utter annihilation than anything that would result from what any army could possibly do.

"Karura," Sunamaru closed the distance between them, lifting up a calloused hand to touch cup his palm to her cheek. "I love Temari-chan, but the council has used her gender as an excuse to curb my influence, the _Kage's_ influence." He paused, seething at the undermining of his inherited and earned rights as protector of all Suna. "I wish to be rid of them."

"I, too." It would be so much easier without their constant malicious intent, obstruction, and machinations; just a small advisory board would work so much better. Her mind had already begun designing a transitional agenda, and she almost missed his next words.

"I'm sure with the help of allies they could be systematically removed," he offered quietly, then she realized what he meant by 'rid'.

Her heart clenched at the potential consequences of such considerations becoming known.

"Sunamaru-sama that is dangerous," she hissed earnestly. If one of the councilmen's spies heard a word of this retribution would be immediate. Her thoughts fled to her daughter, her little girls eyes were just barely opened.

"We can't take them all! The council members may be walking withered old corpses but their sons and bodyguards are not!" She licked her lips and shifted her weight, fiercely organizing her thoughts to form her argument.

"Yashamaru, Yasakani-sensei, and perhaps this Baki-san may support the Kage's family, but Chiyo-baa-sama and Ebizo-jii maybe too sick of warfare to care to help us." The recent direction taken by the Council was loathsome to the old woman. It certainly didn't help that since her grandson's abandonment of the village Chiyo-baa-sama had becoming increasingly bitter and distant. Without her support any attempt at restructuring or reforming the government in any form would be disastrous.

Sunamaru's black eyes flickered in the semi-insane manner she'd come to dread.

"Sunamaru!" She grabbed his face and brought it inches from hers. His glistening eyes snapped back to her and she waited to be sure he was really looking, paying full attention. "Think of Temari-chan if not me," she pleaded.

His arms wrapped around her immediately, expression wounded. "No, never do I forget you." He pressed his dark head in her sandy hair. "It's because I," he swallowed, "wonder how I'll protect you both that I think like this."

She pushed him gently away until she could like at him again.

"You are the Kazekage. You lead this village. We _can_ outwit them. They want a male heir in accordance with traditional stipulation of the position of Kage and that is a major source of leverage for them. Once they get that they lose some of their complaint." She focused for a moment on long-term plans.

"As for the Ichibi, only Chiyo-baa-sama herself has that authoritative knowledge to comment on such a seal. They won't make a move without her public corroboration of their declarations." Due to her years of service to Suna, and her prominent position during the previous generations wars, Chiyo-baa-sama had a reputation and influence the Council could never hope to overcome. The Council would have to obtain her specific public approval before daring to perform any action with the Ichibi.

"That's just it, Karura," Sunamaru murmured, his tone causing her to feel great apprehension. "She does believe the seal is weakening." He sucked in breath as his wife stiffened. His frustration was pouring off of him. "Something about detecting chakra leaking through the seal. A teapot is not a sufficient prison for a biju!" He flung himself away from her and slammed is fists against a desk in frustration. "It has to be a person that is the container."

Blood frosted icily in her veins as she digested that. For the first time, she put her face in her hands.

_Always one more thing…_

"I'm going to learn as much as I can about the Ichibi," he announced, not even bothering to turn to look at her as he spoke. "I'll see what options are available to me." It irked her slightly he said 'me' and not 'us'. "You stay out of politics so the council has no reason to think of you."

She raised an eyebrow at the cavalier treatment, but she chalked it up to the pressure they both faced. He gave her one last look before he started to leave the small study to retire for the evening.

Karura remained in the quiet side room to consider what tomorrow would present for them to combat. She would need to speak with Yashamaru before the convening of the next council session to discuss these new revelations and hear her brother's interpretation of previous events and thoughts on potential avenues of response and recourse. She would also need to speak with him personally about exactly who this Baki-san person was, how he had come into her brothers trust, and what his ambitions were. She also needed to find to ask Yasakani-sensei what the mood among the shinobi forces was. Any acts of open defiance against the will of the council must be undertaken only if the Kage's family had the full support of the Village's military assets. And despite Sunamaru's wishes, she would most certainly arrange a meeting with Chiyo-baa-sama and Ebizo-jii. They would speak in secret if necessary.

Karura, content with her agenda, stretched to her full height to pop her back before following after her husband.

She appreciated the irony that she had actually wanted out of seclusion to face all this.

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AN: Thank you so much to those of you who are willing to read. Some authors might demand reviews at this point but after my many years of lurking I have no room to talk. I would appreciate any feedback though.

Hang on to your hats people. The next chapter is going to be rough.

Review if you like it.

Translations:

Kazekage- Wind shadow, strongest shinobi in Suna

Otou-san- 'father' spoken respectfully

Otou-sama – 'otou-san' spoken with grandiose respect

Okaa-san- 'mother' spoken repectfully

Kusa- Grass, as in the Grass Country

Daimyo- civilian head honcho of the entire country

Ichibi- literally 'One-tail', one of the biju

-sama suffix - grandiose respect, can be translated as 'Lord'

-jii suffix - old man

Names:

Uzume- Goddess of dawn and revelry in Shinto


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything associated with it whatsoever. Alas, and woe.

Written in the Dust

Chapter 7

"Sunamaru-sama stop this!" she wailed as much as she could, loud and long, but her throat was raw from shrieking and sobbing, as exhausted and worn out as her aching limbs, wrenched as the dislocated wrist trapped in the hand of one of the orderlies pinning her bodily to the raised platform.

"Sunamaru!" she shrieked again. Sweat soaked hair slapped her face mockingly as her tear-drenched cheeks as she flailed her head in mounting panic. It couldn't be real; it had to be a horrific genjutsu, a contstruct of a sadistic mind by order of the council to break her spirit.

The searing ache in every inch of body, the burning, grinding shards of pain in her wrist, and the red hot pain accompanying every spasming contraction of her womb as it attempted to birth her third child while enduring the sucking drain of the seal on her chakra told her she was very much awake and in reality. She knew an attempt to cancel the jutsu that didn't exist would be futile and waste her precious, dwindling chakra, but any potential escape, no matter how impossible, was better than this.

"Sunamaru snap out of this please!!" Her voiced cracked in agony as both arms were mercilessly yanked into position by the numerous shinobi acting at her husband's, her oldest friend's, coldly, calmly given order. She coughed painfully in a spray of red droplets. Blood slowly dripped onto the platform and slide in crimson tracks down the side.

She hadn't wanted to believe it; couldn't fathom, and couldn't process the horror of the truth of the betrayal that hurt far more than anything they could do to her physically as she shuddered in unabated agony. She struggled uselessly, defenseless, without even the benefit of the now torn away and discarded thin white nightshirt for protection.

"Please, Sunamaru!" she begged, choking, sobs breaking up her words, her weakening flails easily restrained by her captors. "This is the Ichibi controlling you! It has to be! It's evil!" Too exhausted to hold her head up, her skull clunked pitifully against the corpse dust caked stone slab. "It drove its last host_ insane_!"

Her blood-soaked shriek crashed feebly into the bitterly cold, stone walls of the underground chamber after clawing uselessly against indifferent ears.

"Don't do this thing! Stop this!"

For months the vile strings of malevolent chakra that had clung to the Kazekage; becoming increasingly palpable until even the most chakra insensitive council members trembled finely when all sat in session. As the chakra collected like layers of festering flesh, she had witnessed Sunamaru becoming more and more distant.

It had been so subtle at first; he'd always been so intense, so demanding in his wants, so wild when angered. She had been so focused on ensuring that Yashamaru and she maintained control of how Temari and Kankuro were raised, so distracted by setting up a mental and emotional sanctuary for her children against the elders and the distant threat of the daimyo that she hadn't thought too hard when the first Village Council member died, or even the second. She had even put aside considering how Sunamaru had treated her when their newest child was conceived. She had not listened to her kunoichi instincts and intensive training and now she was going to die for it.

The Shukaku, the insane, evil desert monk, name forgotten by time, who had transformed into an evil embodiment of all the dangers of the desert, the permanent target for destruction of his old order, had clawed his way into her husbands mind. Who knew what the Shukaku had promised him? What lies kept luring her husband back again and again into the catacombs beneath Suna, older than memory and full of corpses that refused to rot and one unholy, seemingly mundane, battered old teapot? Did the Ichibi pretend it would protect the village, her, or the children?

Her mind searched for an escape part of her knew wouldn't come.

Why hadn't Kankuro's birth been the turning point she hoped for? Why hadn't the bandits and mercenary nin been crushed instead of increasing in numbers and daring?

How long had she been mislead, tricked, and lied to by her oldest friend?

"Insane?" A shrug. " Maybe so, but maybe it was the seal," he was so clinical, detached. Apathetic. Her heart broke apart into aching pieces, shattered like the bones in wrist. "Chiyo-baa-sama has agreed to apply this new seal which will function better than the old design onto this new jinchuuriki. This will be an experiment of sorts to improve the jinchuuriki's control over the Shukaku's chakra."

_Not a 'jinchuuriki', your own child! A sibling of our other two children!_

"Sunamaru…" A whimper.

"A new weapon, one that can face any assault, remain completely outside the influence of the Village Council. Perfect. Untouchable, quite literally." Karura gagged on the crimson liquid trickling freely from her nose and eyes. Congealed blood on her eyelashes began to cake her eyes shut. "Oh, don't act so frightened," he admonished her as if she were an unreasonable child awoken from a nightmare. "We both wanted to be free of the council and protect Temari and Kankuro."

He leaned over her pinned body to look her in the face, his eyes no longer dangerous, or wild, just totally, totally insane.

"Using this method, the village will always be protected, our family always safe from those meddling old men, and with the Ichibi at the mercy of it's host, not the other way around. Flawless."

"No," a bare squeak, "this our child." She gagged, choked, and hyperventilated around the blood draining into her throat; her failing voice hardly moving the words past her colorless. "Sunamaru, don't hurt the baby. Please. Please don't... please…"

The room was swimming in her vision, and breath was a fight against the chakra bands tightening like fists, each breath of putrid catacomb vapors requiring all her strength. She couldn't even feel the crushing grip of the orderlies anymore.

"Chiyo-baa-sama, Yashamaru-san…" Unfamiliar voices drifted to her blood leaking ears.

_No… Leave him alone…. Not Yashamaru._

"She's dying. The child is killing her…"

It was becoming difficult to hear, and she gagged painfully, blowing a bubble of blood that popped against the sanguine fluid already caked and drying on her blanched lips. Her yellowed eyes rolled useless and unseeing in their bloodied sockets. Every sound was muffled and fuzzy, like listening through a layer of dirt.

"…the doctors tried everything, Yashamaru…. "

"…too fragile! Don't touch her…"

"…all happened so fast…"

"…declining far too quickly…"

"…she wanted to help the Kage to the last Yashamaru-sama…"

"…she volunteered the _thing_ for this…"

Cold. She felt so cold and everything hurt. Shouldn't she be numb if she's this cold? She shuddered uncontrollably as the muscles around her uterus contracted violently.

"Chiyo-baa-sama hurry!"

"GET HER HERE NOW!"

A heartless command. She shuddered uncontrollably now. How could Sunamaru sound like that? No, not Sunamaru, the spirit of a cursed, undead desert monk.

Tendrils of dread curled into her awareness, followed by giddy delight at her pain, at the burning in every spider web of her nerves, every dribbling rivulet of tears, blood, and saliva dripping onto unforgiving stone.

Malevolent, poisonous chakra swirled into her chakra network, directed toward the seal, but also, racing for her lungs, her mouth, and her voice. It seeped into her misfiring nervous system, hijacking muscles and bone.

She cried out, then sucked in rancid air so forcefully she barely felt the orderlies pin her with enough force to snap more weakening bone.

"I hate you all for this…" she rasped.

She sucked in another rattling breath.

"_I hate you all for this!!!"_ she roared, her body not all her own.

_What am I saying?_

"This village, these people, all of you!"

_I am not trying to speak!_

She writhed in the restraining grips loosened by utter shock, her blood dribbling over cracked, blue-ing lips flecked with red froth.

"I never even wanted this child! I had the boy they wanted! I had one!!!" She shrieked until she roughly hacked up even more fresh scarlet fluid.

"I had my boy and girl! I didn't want this one!"

_No, this one is my baby, too! Someone, please…_

Incoherent curses such as she never said flew from between her lips like demons; curses and swears she would never say she used on the village, the council, her husband, and her own baby not even born.

_Please…_

"I hate you, whoever you will be you vile little thing…"

_Please somebody silence me! _

"I'll never love you. No one will love you and you'll love only yourself… You little demon, you'll love only you…

_I don't mean this! I don't!_

"You are… You are Gaara! This child's name is Gaara!

_No! You're my baby! Like your sister and brother!_

Cruor and hatred boiled over from her cracked lips and she hissed and shouted the lies of hate until her voice shriveled and died completely. The alien chakra began to abandon her voice, satisfied or simply no longer interested, she didn't know, it's acidly cold flow swirled into the coils at her center, sliding through the connection between mother and child, invading her baby through outside direction, manipulated by the forming final seal.

She had wondered at points if she would know what death felt like, the feel of her life force draining away, her senses closing off, silence and nothingness coming in through every avenue of awareness.

_Wait. I didn't get to say it. To counter the lies, how I really feel…_

Temari and Kankuro drifted through her mind in a watery haze of color. The new child's siblings. She had one last moment to feel, so distantly, like it wasn't even her but another person she didn't even know, as she was sliced open for the Cesarean.

_I love you…_

_

* * *

  
_

AN: The epilogue to this story will be posted separately. It has a different tone than the rest of the story and stands by itself rather well. Look for the one-shot Carved in Stone in my profile shortly. You need to read it to truly read the conclusion of this story.

The Ichibi attempted to use Sunamaru as his way to freedom, but quickly realized Chiyo wouldn't le him escape. Instead it settled for plan B: Learn to use the child. Shukaku also realized that as long as Karura lived, he would never rule the Kage or his son. Her strong family values and affection for them was too strong to override, so Shukaku waged a campaign to destroy their ties to her and her influence on them, including making her shriek complete fabrications at the end.

Thank you to all of you willing to read! I appreciate it greatly.


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